Tag: National Trust
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Today is St. Thomas’s Day
Or is it? The great god Wikipedia says is 21st December, tomorrow. But Rev. J. C. Atkinson in his 1858 tome “Forty Years in a Moorland Parish” writes that it is the 20th December. I am more inclined to believe the Reverend. An old-fashioned book sitting on my shelf has more authenticity. Whatever the day…
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Nuthatch
You will probably hear this little bird before you see it. It’s very vocal, singing a variety of loud songs with lots of different whistle-sounding notes. It’s the nuthatch, nut jobber, nut cracker, nut pecker or wood cracker. All referring to its habit of lodging nuts in crevices in the bark of trees to crack…
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First snow of the winter
Whoopee. Woke up to falling snow. The first of the winter. And much more to come according to the Express. Their forecast is the coldest winter for years. Very dire, El Nino’s fault apparently. The photo is on Roseberry Common looking up Little Roseberry. The snow was now sleet. Remembered my hat, remembered my gloves…
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Bridestones Moor
The National Trust’s rare area of heather moorland just north of Dalby Forest. Rare because it is not intensively managed unlike most of the rest of heather moorlands on the North York Moors which are managed for one purpose only, that is to maximise the breeding of grouse for shooting, in spite of having the…
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As mad as an atter
In Dovedale Griff near Dalby Forest volunteering with the National Trust when this little beauty was discovered in one of their reptile habitats. Now I have it somewhere in the back of my mind that “an Adder” was originally “a Nadder”. No idea where this came from, I could well have dreamt it. But Google…
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Coniston Hall
It’s eighteen years since I was last at Coniston Hall. A National Trust tenanted farm run as a campsite on the side of Coniston Water. Very little changed, still as popular. The vernacular architecture of the Lakeland chimneys still intrigues me. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Wakey, wakey, campers
Out and about in Cliff Rigg Wood early on a lovely fresh morning, the start of the weekend, but then I smelt smoke, and then a red mist covered my eyes. But maybe the tents won’t be torched, easier than packing, the brown stuff on the baby wipes on the path is only just chocolate,…
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Last of the evening sun, Newton Woods
There is something particularly nemophilic wandering through woodland at the end of a warm sultry day. Newton Wood has been designated ‘ancient woodland’. Officially it has existed for at least 400 years although it’s probably been here since time immemorial. It is hard to imagine the steep slopes ever having been cultivated or put to…
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Tea on the Topping
It’s that time of the year again. The annual National Trust’s “Tea on the Topping”, tea and a delicious selection of homemade cakes on offer on Cleveland’s Matterhorn. The bright sunny day attracting hundred’s of climbers. How many people can you get on Roseberry? Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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Robin’s pincushion
Every so often nature springs a surprise. This dog rose in Cliff Ridge Wood appears to have grown some pretty little red “flowers”. These are in fact galls, a reaction in the plant tissue to the laying of eggs in the leaf buds by a gall wasp, Diplolepis rosae. The wasp lays up to 60…